If you have a website you have probably received a copyright notice before, this one was a little different. It came from John Cardillom [email protected] with Subject: Copyright Strike. It was clearly another phishing attempt. I came from my website’s contact us page.
Here is the Copyright Strike Scam Email
From: John Cardillo [email protected]
Subject: Copyright StrikeMessage Body:
I hope this notification finds you well.Your website (MyWebsiteName.com) or a website that your company hosts is infringing on copyright-protected images owned by my company.
The wordpress official copyrights dashboard can be found at:
https://copyrightbreach.wordpress.com
Check out your wordpress copyrights dashboard with the links to my media you used and my earlier publications to get the evidence of my copyrights.
I believe you have purposefully infringed my rights under 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq. and could be liable for statutory damages as high as $640,000 as set forth in Section 504(c)(2) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”) therein.
This letter is official notification. I seek the removal of the infringing material mentioned above. Please take note as a service provider, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act requires you, to delete or disable access to the infringing materials upon receipt of this email. If you do not cease the use of the aforementioned copyrighted material a lawsuit will be commenced against you.
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Best Regards.
John Cardillo
If you click on the link in the e-mail
If you were to click on the link in the email, this is the page you would see:
DO NOT ENTER YOUR WEBSITE’S LOGIN INFORMATION!
I will say that this phishing attempt was well thought out, they even used a free domain at wordpress.com. What they are trying to do is capture your websites credentials and your login. They can then access your wordpress website and all your content. If you have a woocommerce or other form of e-commerce website on wordpress, they have have access to your financial information, or can change where payment is made.
I did try to reply to John Cardillo, but the email just bounced, clearly a fake email or was already taken down.
I also reported https://copyrightbreach.wordpress.com as a phishing website to wordpress and google.
How do I know this Copyright Strike email is Phishing?
Shortly after I entered fake information on the phishing website copyrightbreach.wordpress.com, I received this email from My Wesbite what there were several failed login attempts:
A lockdown event has occurred due to too many failed login attempts or invalid username:
Username: mikaelsomething
IP Address: 193.27.13.101
IP Range: 193.27.13.*
If you entered your information on this Phishing Website
If you received a similar email regarding a Copyright Strike, and happened to have entered your wordpress login information on the page mentioned above, IMMEDIATELY change your passwords on your wordpress site.
Hopefully you found this information useful and helpful. Let us know in the comment below if you received a similar email.